Anna, Where Are You? (16 page)

Returning home with the Miss Tremletts, Thomasina was not at all surprised to discover Peter Brandon upon the doorstep. Not quite literally upon the actual step of course, but prowling up and down with the obvious intention of intercepting them. Since she desired nothing better than an opportunity of telling him just what she felt about his following her to Deep End, she accepted an invitation to go for a walk with no more than a single indignant glance. She had her back to the Miss Tremletts at the time, so there was nothing to chill the warm sympathy with which her departure with Peter was regarded. It was as well that Miss Elaine and Miss Gwyneth could have no idea of the really furious antagonisms which were surging up in the two young people whom they followed with so kindly and sentimental a gaze.

They were no sooner screened by an intervening clump of evergreen than Thomasina turned a fiery glance upon her companion. It told her what indeed she had already guessed, that here was no abashed penitent, but a stiff-necked young man in quite as bad a temper as herself. And worse, because she didn’t go into black rages, and Peter did. He was in one now, and they always made him very difficult to deal with. She began to review her armoury. A good vigorous attack would at any rate bring things out into the open. And he needn’t think she was going to let him get in first, because she wasn’t. A fine colour mounted to her cheeks. The grey eyes which at least two young men, undeterred by the limited number of available rhymes, had compared—in verse—to stars were trained upon him.

“Why on earth did you come here?”

Height confers a most unfair advantage. Peter could look down upon the top of her head. He did this briefly, and countered with,

“For that matter, why did you?”

“Look here, Peter——”

“I haven’t the slightest desire to look at you! I haven’t got the patience! You stir up this idiotic business about Anna Ball —well, I was against that all along, wasn’t I? The girl probably had some perfectly good reason for getting off the map, and if you ever do find her, I’ve no doubt she won’t be best pleased. Well, then you go grubbing round after her—”

“I do not go grubbing round!”

He raised his voice and swept on.

“You hire a private detective, and she has no sooner got on to the job than you come blundering down here, and get in her way, and run yourself into God knows what unpleasantness. That chap Abbott’s down here, isn’t he? And there’s been a bank robbery and a double murder in Ledlington. I suppose you do know that?”

Thomasina put her chin in the air.

“Considering Frank and a Ledlington Inspector are over here about it this morning, I suppose I do.”

“And why are they over here about it?”

She said in a voice that was more thoughtful than angry,

“They want to know who spent a pound note in a fancy-work shop in Dedham, and whether there was anything odd about it. And they want to know whether anyone was in Ledlington yesterday afternoon—and of course quite a lot of them were.”

“Who?”

A gleam of humour mitigated her glance.

“Not me. Disappointing for you, but there it is.”

“I said who.”

“Oh, Miss Gwyneth—but I don’t think she’d be any good at robbing a bank—not really, you know. And Miss Silver, and that funny little Mr. Remington, and the bird-watching man who lives in the other wing at Deepe House with all the windows boarded up, and Mr. Craddock. They were all there, but none of them seems to have any clear idea of just where they were or what they were doing when the bank was being robbed. Miss Elaine and I have perfect alibis, because by three o’clock she had stopped resting and was telling me all about her mother making a phonograph record when they were first invented—Edison and all that you know—and how she stopped because she was nervous and gave a little laugh right in the middle of her song, and of course it came out in the record. Well, nobody could make up an alibi like that if it wasn’t true, could they? So Miss Elaine and I are safe.”

He was frowning very deeply indeed.

“Why do they think anyone here was mixed up in it?”

Thomasina was serious too.

“I don’t know whether they do—I suppose they must. It would be something to do with the pound note they were asking about. They didn’t say, of course, but there was that robbery near London about a month ago—what was the name of the place—Enderby Green. The bank manager was murdered there too, and I’ve got an idea it had something to do with that. The note they were asking about couldn’t be one that was robbed at Ledlington yesterday, because it was part of the takings of this fancy-work shop at Dedham as far back as Tuesday. There seemed to be something they could recognize it by, and of course if they thought anyone from here had paid it in, they would naturally want to know what we were all doing yesterday afternoon. But perhaps I had better tell you all about it.”

“Perhaps you had.” It wasn’t said in at all an encouraging sort of voice.

Thomasina was under no illusion about Peter Brandon. Children always know what people are like. Sometimes they forget later on, but she had known Peter when she was in her pram, and she hadn’t got a forgetting nature. She knew just how obstinate and opinionated and odious he could be. She considered that he was exhibiting all these unpleasant qualities in a highly characteristic manner, but as she really did want to tell him about the interview with the police she refrained herself and plunged into narrative. She made it a lively one. By the time she had finished Peter might almost have been there.

“And when Pompous Peveril said they hadn’t got anything to hide, Mr. Robinson laughed as if he thought there was something very funny about that, and Mrs. Craddock fainted.”

They discussed all the implications of John Robinson’s laugh and Emily Craddock’s swoon, emerging upon a worse battleground than before, it being Peter’s declared opinion that the whole thing was so fishy that it stank, and that the sooner she got out of it the better.

Thomasina re-entered the fray with zest.

“If there’s a stink, it’s because there’s something that wants clearing up, which is a reason for staying, not for running away/”

Peter stuck his hands in his pockets.

“You know, I think I should leave garbage to the garbage-man—in this case the police. More efficient and less likely to get themselves and everyone else into a mess. There’s a train from Ledlington at three-five. Go home and pack your things, and we’ll go out by the bus and catch it.”

Thomasina told herself afterwards that she had been perfectly calm and dignified. She said,

“If you think you can look up trains and buses that I don’t want and make me take them, you had better start thinking all over again, because I’m staying here.”

She did admit in the privacy of her own thought that she ought to have left it at that. It was calm, it was adequate, and if Peter wasn’t set down by it he ought to have been. Unfortunately, instead of stopping she went on. She wasn’t quite sure what she actually said, because her feelings overcame her, but she did remember that she had stamped her foot, and that there had been an access of angry tears when she came to the part about Anna. Because, somehow or other, that was where they had got back to—Anna Ball, and why had she disappeared, and where was she now?

“And don’t you see, Peter, if there really is someone here who is going round robbing banks and shooting people—don’t you see that something perfectly dreadful might have happened to Anna? Just because of that. You called her a Nosey Parker yourself—you know you did. And she was! She always wanted to know everything. I used to be sorry for her about it and think it was because she hadn’t got a family or any affairs of her own to be interested in. But don’t you see, if she was like that—and she was—don’t you see, it might have got her into finding out something—something dangerous. Don’t you see that she might have given someone a dreadful reason for getting rid of her?” Peter took his hands out of his pockets and caught hold of her wrists.

“Suppose it’s true—suppose she did get herself murdered. I don’t believe it for a moment, but just suppose she did. What do you propose to do about it—go poking your nose in where you’re not wanted, and get yourself murdered too? You might, you know. If you tried hard enough, and if there really is a murderer camouflaging himself in this barmy Colony. I suppose you expect me to stand by and let you do it. Well, I’m not going to, and that’s flat!”

“Let me go!”

She might just as well not have spoken.

“It’s a job for the police, and you know it! There’s nothing you could do if you stayed here for a month of Sundays!”

“Well then, there is!”

“As what?”

If she had been a little cooler, or if he hadn’t been holding her, she might not have gone on, but the things that were bubbling up in her were too hot and angry. They came pouring out.

“Someone has got to find out about Anna. It’s nearly five months, and perhaps she’s dead. Or shut up. It keeps coming over me. Suppose she found out something and they’ve got her shut up in the ruined part of the house. No one goes in there except that Craddock man. It’s kept locked off because it’s not supposed to be safe for the children. Those old houses have cellars. Suppose Anna is there, locked up—how can I go away? I think about it in the night. Suppose she was locked up in one of those cellars, and everyone said like you do, ‘Oh, well, she just doesn’t choose to write.’ I keep thinking about that, and about our all just getting up in the morning, and having our meals, and going out and coming in, and nobody bothering about her or—or caring whether she is dead or alive. Peter, it’s no use —I’ve got to do something about it. And—and—there’s someone coming—let go of me at once, or I’ll scream!”

“And give me in charge for assault?”

She said in a quick different voice,

“It would serve you right. Peter, let go—there is someone coming!”

John Robinson came up through the wood. He did not watch birds for nothing. He was instantly aware that he had interrupted a quarrel. He observed the traces of Thomasina’s angry tears, the brightness of her eyes, and the very becoming colour which deepened at his approach. He observed a broken twig and a crushed leaf about midway between her and the tall frowning young man, and deduced without difficulty that he had just stepped back from—no, not an embrace. Miss Thomasina Elliot was rubbing her wrists. The fellow had been holding her, and he had stepped back. It became necessary to discover whether this was a case of damsel in distress. He therefore checked a little in his walk, allowed a smile to filter through his beard, and addressed Thomasina.

“Taking the air after our grilling by the police? There’s quite a good view at the top of the hill. Have you been up there yet?” His voice was slow and pleasant, the country accent much less marked than it had been at Deepe House.

Thomasina was rather pleased with the way she managed to smile and say,

“Yes, the children took me. I haven’t time to go on this morning. Peter and I have to be getting back.”

So the young man was a friend. Mr. Robinson acknowledged the half introduction with another smile and went on his way whistling melodiously.

Thomasina set off at a brisk pace down the hill without looking round to see whether Peter was following her. She wouldn’t run, because if she did he might run after her. She would just walk as fast as she could and not look round, and whether he overtook her or not, she did not intend to say another single word.

But when, within sight of the Miss Tremletts’ cottage, she broke her resolution and looked back, there was no sign of Peter Brandon.

In the afternoon the Miss Tremletts took Thomasina to tea with Miranda. Having met the assembled Colony once already that day, it was rather a relief to find that they were the only guests. Even Peter wasn’t there. There really was, of course, no reason why he should have been, since it was most improbable that he and Miranda had met. It was therefore completely irrational to feel a little lowered in one’s spirits.

Miranda’s exuberant welcome did nothing to raise them. She embraced Miss Elaine and Miss Gwyneth as if they had been parted for months instead of a few short hours, and held Thomasina by both hands for quite a long time. Warmth to which one cannot respond has a depressing effect. Thomasina did not in the least want to have her hands held by an astonishing red-haired woman in a flowing violet robe. She hoped that Elaine and Gwyneth would not think it necessary to stay for hours, but she was very much afraid that they might. People did in the Colony.

It was during tea that Thomasina realized how fortunate she was to be boarding with the Miss Tremletts, and not with anyone else. Devoted adherents of Peveril Craddock’s they might be, but they remained obstinately faithful to quite ordinary things to eat. There was no health tea in their cottage, no special brand of coffee which was made out of something quite different, none of the cereals which so strongly resemble little packets of chopped straw. There was brown bread, it is true, and there was porridge, but after that the line was firmly drawn.

Miranda had a health tea of her own of a pale greenish colour, and it had lemon in it instead of milk. Thomasina found it quite incredibly nasty. There were also home-made biscuits with a good deal of charcoal in them, a conserve of rowan and elderberry which combined mawkishness with acidity, and a savoury cake which tasted strongly of sage. It was not an inspiring meal, and the dreadful thing was that Miranda was quite overwhelmingly hospitable, and not only told them exactly how everything was made, but continued to press her horrid handiwork upon them in such a manner that it could not be refused.

“I really think my best batch of preserve! Augustus said not enough sugar, but it is keeping remarkably well. And the cake— an experiment, and really quite a striking success, I think, and I am sure that you will too. Elaine, you are eating nothing… No, Gwyneth, I really cannot take a refusal—you must positively try these sandwiches. Quite a new filling, and I’m not going to tell you what it is, because I want you to guess… Oh, no, it is not one of Peveril’s. Advanced as he is in some ways, he is inclined to be unprogressive in the matter of food. Experiment must go before experience. We cannot always see where the next step will take us. Miss Elliot—or may I say Ina—these forms are so meaningless, do you not think so—you have positively nothing to eat. Now, which is it to be—the cake, the sandwiches, or the biscuits?”

The sandwiches seemed the smallest. Thomasina took one, and found that two more were being pressed upon her plate.

“Something quite new, and I am sure that you will like them.”

They were quite incredibly nasty, with several lingering flavours which she found it impossible to resolve. She did refuse a second dose of pale green tea, but her cup was filled and she had to go on sipping from it. The one stroke of luck was being able to slip the two extra sandwiches into the pocket of her coat, where the filling oozed and left a horrid stain upon the lining. She would not have been able to do it if it had not been for the unheralded appearance of Augustus Remington, who wandered into the room in a pale blue smock with a tambour frame in one hand and an embroidery needle connected with it by a strand of orange silk in the other. Since the heads of all three ladies were immediately turned in his direction, she snatched the opportunity and dealt with the sandwiches.

A sad protesting voice rose above the welcoming twitter of the Miss Tremletts and the hospitable insistence of Miranda.

“No—no—not a thing. Charcoal in those biscuits is a mistake —a mere dissonance. And I always told you there wasn’t enough sugar in that conserve. No—no—I won’t take anything at all. And certainly not herbal cake. Nor sandwiches. They remind me too, too painfully of that horror of childhood’s days, the picnic—spiders down the back of the neck and earwigs in the milk. Besides, I have no appetite at all. This morning’s rude intrusion! Too shattering to the vibrations! I did not come here for food, but for companionship. I heard your voices in my solitude, where I was endeavouring to compose myself with my embroidery, and my feet brought me here.” He waved the tambour frame at Miss Gwyneth and dropped his voice to a low and confidential tone. “My latest composition.”

“What is it, Augustus?”

Both the Miss Tremletts peered at the fine stretched canvas upon which there was depicted a dark grey cloud tinged with pink, a human eye surrounded by three sunflower heads, and a twining plant with scarlet berries. The eye had been completed, but only one of the sunflowers and part of the trailing plant. The cloud was in a fairly advanced state. As an example of the embroiderer’s art it stood high, a fact immediately pointed out by Miranda.

“I told you he did the most exquisite needlework”—she addressed Thomasina—“No, it wasn’t you, it was that Miss Silver. But he does, doesn’t he?”

“What does it mean?” repeated the Miss Tremletts, both speaking together.

Mr. Remington appeared to wave the question away.

“That surely is for you to say. I conceive the idea—I endeavour to give it form and substance. It is not for me to supply the perceptive intelligence as well. Beauty is given to the world—it is for the world to receive it.” He flung himself into a chair as he spoke, put a couple of stitches into one of the sunflowers, and murmured in a languid voice, “The inspiration fails. After this morning I am not yet attuned.”

Thomasina had already heard so much about the morning that she could not imagine Miss Gwyneth and Miss Elaine having anything more to say about it. But in that she was wrong. Not only they but Miranda and Augustus appeared to have an endless store of speculation, supposition and comment to offer. And they all appeared to be very much taken up with Mr. John Robinson.

“Such a strange person.”

“All those windows boarded up.”

“No one knows anything at all about him.”

“We have never ever spoken to him. He seems positively to avoid us”—that was the Miss Tremletts. “Distressingly secretive.”

Sometimes they all talked at once, sometimes Miranda’s deep ringing voice bore everyone down. Thomasina remembered the story of the Scapegoat. She thought it would be very convenient if the police could be induced to fix their attention upon Mr. John Robinson, who though in the Colony was not really of it.

“Of course,” said Miss Gwyneth, “we are all quite sure that this horrid affair can have nothing to do with us.”

“Peveril was wonderful!” said Miss Elaine. “Such dignity— such composure. But that he should be subjected—that any of us should be subjected to being questioned by the police!”

Miranda looked over the tops of their heads and said,

“He stands too high to be touched by it.”

Augustus Remington pushed away his tambour frame in rather a pettish manner.

“Dear Miranda, how true! And so, I hope, do we all. Yet innocence should be vindicated. It has occurred to me that you might contribute to this end by your art. As you know, I am somewhat of a sceptic as to the—no, I will not say authenticity, since that would imply a doubt of your integrity which I would, of course, never for a moment entertain.”

Miranda lapsed into her blunter manner.

“If you will say what you mean, Augustus, and stop wrapping it up!

He closed his eyes for a moment.

“I cannot be hurried—it disturbs the thought process. I was about to say that if I were not somewhat of a skeptic as to the practical uses of the crystal, I would suggest that you should employ it in order to clear this matter up.”

Miss Gwyneth brightened.

“Miranda sees things in the crystal,” she explained to Thomasina. “If she were to look into it she might see something about Mr. Robinson or—or—anyone.” She turned eagerly. “Miranda, have you tried?”

Miranda waved a noncommittal hand.

“It has all been dark—”

“But it mightn’t be today—with all of us here in sympathy!” Miss Elaine’s voice was eager too.

Augustus made a slight negative gesture.

“I am half a sceptic. You must not rely on me.”

Thomasina had been brought up to be polite to her elders, or she would have added, “Or on me.”

But it became apparent that opposition had merely roused Miranda’s spirit, and that with or without any further urging she proposed to accede to the Miss Tremletts’ request. The tea-table was cleared and a square of black velvet laid upon it, the crystal, a large round ball on an ebony stand, placed exactly in the centre, and all the lights turned out except for one which cast a single dazzling ray. It was all very odd, and something in Thomasina didn’t like it. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t care, because what she felt had nothing to do with reason. It harked right back to the child or the savage who is afraid of the dark. And what that child or that savage wanted to do was to hit right out at the crystal ball and to break it, and then run screaming from the room. Naturally the civilized person who was Thomasina hadn’t the slightest notion of doing any such thing.

She watched the ray of light which came slanting from a hooded lamp and made the crystal ball look like a bubble of light floating on dark, deep water. You couldn’t see the table, or the velvet, or the ebony stand—only the ball with the light swirling round in it. Because that was what it seemed to do. It swirled like water—no, like mist—like cloudy thoughts in a dream. And then they cleared, and as plainly as she had ever seen anything in all her life, she saw Anna Ball’s face looking at her out of the crystal. It was there for a moment, and then it was gone again. But she had seen it, and nothing and nobody was ever going to persuade her that she hadn’t. She drove her nails hard, hard against the palm of either hand.

Miranda gave a long, deep sigh, and leaned right back against the cushions of her chair. The ray and the bright crystal were between her and Thomasina. When she leaned back like that she went into the darkness. Her voice came out of it, very deep and low.

“Anna, where are you?”

All the words were on the same deep muted note. Then the voice lifted. It became another voice, faint and far away.

“Not—here—”

Then the deep voice again.

“Where are you?”

“A—long—way—off—”

“Where?”

“I—don’t—want—her—to—know. Tell her… happy… no good—to—cling—to the past… Broken links—cannot— be replaced…This is—final.”

There was another of those deep sighs. Miranda moved, put up a hand to her head, groaned distressfully, and sat up.

“What happened?” she said in her natural voice. She sounded bewildered. “Did anyone see anything? I didn’t. I went into the trance—or did I? I feel awful. Here, for pity’s sake put on the lights, Augustus, and switch off that ray—it’s blinding me!”

As the lights came on, Miranda could be seen to be pale. Between the dark red of her hair and the violet of her robe this pallor had a greenish tinge. But the room was consolingly ordinary again. The remnants of the tea, hastily bundled on to a side table, were reassuringly domestic. The crystal on its ebony stand was just a big glass ball. The black velvet square upon which it stood had a worn place on it, and the edges had begun to fray.

Miranda blinked and said,

“I don’t remember a thing. What happened?”

Elaine was twittering with excitement.

“You went into a trance!”

Miranda ran a hand through her hair.

“But I was going to look into the crystal—”

“Oh, but you didn’t! You just leaned back, and of course we knew it was the trance. And then you began to talk.”

“What did I say?”

“You said, ‘Anna, where are you?’ ” Thomasina spoke in a voice which she only just kept from being an angry one. “Why did you do that?”

“I haven’t the least idea. Did I say anything else?”

Augustus Remington gave his odd high laugh.

“Oh, yes, my dear, you did indeed! First you said, ‘Anna, where are you—’ ”

“And then your voice was quite different, and you said, ‘Not here—’ ”

“And then—”

They tumbled over one another to tell her what she had said— breaking sentences, jumbling up the words, correcting one another. Only Thomasina took no part in it. She looked at Miranda and she held her tongue.

“ ‘Anna, where are you—’ Well, I can’t make head or tail of it,” said Miranda. “Can anyone?”

Miss Gwyneth was frowning.

“That Miss Ball’s name was Anna, wasn’t it?”

Miss Elaine gave a little sniff.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. She wasn’t at all friendly—no one called her by it. And she went away almost at once.”

“And why should you get a message from her?” said Gwyneth. “So—so irrelevant.”

Augustus Remington had picked up his tambour frame. He held the needle poised and took a delicate stitch.

“How too, too true! The irrelevance of these communications intrigues me. Why wander in from the void to make perfectly banal remarks?”

“But there was a message,” said Miss Elaine.

“Oh, a definite message,” said Miss Gwyneth.

They spoke as if taking part in a duet.

‘“I don’t want her to know—’ ”

“ ‘Broken links cannot be replaced—’ ”

Then, both together,

“But what does it mean? Who is the message for?”

Augustus took another stitch. His glance mocked them.

“That, alas, we cannot tell.”

Miranda closed her eyes.

“Well, all I can say is that it means nothing to me, except that it’s given me a headache. But then that’s often the way with messages like this—they don’t mean a thing to me. I am only the medium.” She raised her hands above her head and stretched magnificently. “Well, that’s that, and I’m going to have another cup of tea.”

When your hostess has confessed to having a headache it is not in very good taste to linger upon the scene. Miss Elaine and Miss Gwyneth made their farewells. The embraces were on the languid side, and Thomasina got off with quite an ordinary handshake.